Here We Go
by evienne
Summary: Jack helps make David's birthday memorable in typical style. He breaks his leg in the middle of a blizzard. Gen.


**A/N: **I just thought it was time to hurt Jack a bit. :) Warnings: non-graphic injury, (quite responsible) consumption of alcohol. (David's eighteen-nearly-nineteen here, so they're both under the current legal drinking age, but I'm reasonably sure that eighteen was the legal age in New York at the time this is set. If I'm wrong, just hand-wave and say that Newsies is an alternate universe where people break into song and dance and eighteen is the legal age and that's why they're allowed into pubs.) Not mine, not making any money. Gen.

* * *

"I'm about ninety percent certain that I'm too old for this."

"I'm about hundred percent certain that you'se eighteen years old, and that means you _ain't_," Jack said dryly. "Are you countin' in dog years or what?"

"I'm practically nineteen."

"Oh, well, just about ready for the undertaker, then," Jack said, rolling his eyes. (Which, if David was being fair, was probably entirely justified.)

It was David's birthday, or at least the eve of it, and Jack had decided that the opportunity to drag David from his books was too good to miss. David had gone willingly enough. They saw each other less and less these days (not quite yet infrequently, but certainly _less_), and it was unusual to find them both free on the same evening. Besides, even though David disliked on principle the dank public houses that were Jack's destination of choice for a celebration, it was impossible to deny that the nights Jack hosted usually ended up being _memorable_.

In the end, though, David had called a halt on their night out a good deal earlier than Jack had probably (certainly) intended, too disturbed by the gathering clouds and the memory of ominous weather predictions from the papers that day to enjoy himself. They'd left the last place at the very respectable hour of ten p.m., and were now trudging home in the vaguely fading hope of beating the storm back.

"Anyhow," Jack demanded, "too old for _what_, walkin'?"

David glanced around; the wind was picking up already, and the flakes of snow that had fallen in pretty powdery patterns earlier in the evening were coming thicker and faster by the moment. "Too old to be out when we both know what the forecast said."

"I did say that we should stay at the inn."

"Yes," David admitted. "Maybe you were right."

Jack leaned closer, making a show out of looking shocked. "What's that? Did you just agree with me?"

"I wouldn't get used to it," David said, grinning nonetheless as he stumbled briefly on the icy street. "How far away are we?"

Jack shrugged, setting David on his feet again. "Half an hour from yours, a bit further from mine. The Lodging House is a bit closer, maybe, and Kloppman ain't gonna turn us away."

"I haven't been there in years," David mused.

It was an exaggeration, though probably only a mild one. Most of the newsies he knew best were now spread about the city or the general East Coast, doing this and that; there simply hadn't been any _reason _for David to visit the Lodging House in a long while. He felt a sudden, odd pang at the thought. Once, he had been able to put a name to the face of just about every newsie that did the rounds in Lower Manhattan. He still did his best, made a point of finding out the name of whomever he bought his paper from, but even the best intentions in the world were no substitute for actually being a newsie oneself.

"Do you miss it?" he asked suddenly.

Jack shrugged, though the action seemed a little over-casual. "Wasn't ever gonna be a forever thing."

Which wasn't exactly what David had asked, but he let it go. The wind whipped into a frenzy; he adjusted the collar of his coat against it and stepped right into a frozen puddle.

"Care_ful_." Jack grabbed the back of David's collar as David skidded forward again. His own boots failed to grip, and the two of them crashed down on the icy cobblestones together. David sat up, rubbing his elbow.

"Next time, just let me go down on my own," he advised, pushing himself back up. "You've got farther to fall…Jack?" Jack was still on the ground; David bent to touch his shoulder. Jack's face looked milky. "You all right?"

"Yeah," Jack said unconvincingly after a moment. "Um. Hm. Give me a hand." He grabbed David's offered hand around the forearm and hauled himself upright with unusual ginger care, standing awkwardly on his right leg.

"Hurt yourself?"

Jack shook his head, though probably more to signal David to be quiet than to deny it. "Just give us a moment." He stepped forward experimentally on his injured leg and came crashing down a moment later with an agonised yelp.

"Keep still," David ordered (unnecessarily), closing a hand over Jack's forearm. Jack's leg _bent _just above the ankle, right where no bend should exist. David set his jaw and reminded himself that he'd been a newsie, on and off, for two years, and decided firmly that he _wasn't _going to be sick. "You'll make it worse."

Jack nodded, jaw clenched. David, fingers still gripped around Jack's arm, glanced around the empty street for help in vain. All the stores had closed hours ago. They were clearly the only people foolish enough to be wandering around outside in a burgeoning blizzard.

"You better go get somebody," Jack suggested, speaking through gritted teeth. "But help me outta the middle of the road first."

David couln't fault the logic—a lone injured man in the middle of a New York night was asking for trouble—but felt heartily opposed to the idea of moving Jack with a leg that looked like that. "Won't it just make things worse?"

"_How_?" Jack demanded.

"At least let's try splinting it first."

Jack paused; nodded, seeing the sense of the suggestion. "Yeah, okay. You know how?"

"No. But I've seen pictures."

Jack sent him a very flat look. "Oh, _good_." Broken legs never brought out the best in anybody. "Lucky for me, Kloppman showed us."

Under Jack's instruction, David searched through the trash cans in their immediate vicinity, returned with several discarded newspapers. He wrapped the leg as gently as possible, trying to ignore the way Jack caught his breath or bit back a curse, and used his own scarf to bind the whole of it together.

"It's better than nothing, anyway," he said when he was done, without really much confidence at all. He looked from Jack to a likely corner, eight yards away, and weighed up their options. Crawling there, hands and knees, was probably the best thing—less likely to put strain on Jack's leg, less likely to cause him to pass out, and still feasible while the snow remained light. Jack wasn't so much heavier than David, but the difficulty was that he carried all the extra weight in length, which made him that much more awkward to support.

Jack seemed to understand, anyway, rolling onto his hands and dragging himself with cautiousness through the snow. David scraped the gathering snow out of his path ahead, clearing a path to the wall. Jack settled his back against it at last, gingerly stretching his injured leg out, pale-faced and teeth set together, while David pulled a couple of trash cans in front of him to act dually as windbreak and concealment. Not much, but it was something. It was becoming a motto.

"You all right?" David asked, receiving a nod in reply. "I'm going to find some help, okay? I'll be back soon."

"Take your time," Jack said with an attempt at indifference, which, given that this was Jack, ended up a pretty good imitation.

David made it just two and a half streets before the blizzard hit in earnest. (Tomorrow, the papers would declare this storm second only to the famous '99 fall, with which David would only quibble at the 'second' qualifier.) He struggled manfully against it for another block, the combination of wind and snow striping stinging lines across his face in innumerable places, before finally giving it up. He turned, gratefully putting his back to the wind, and retraced his steps, praying he hadn't forgotten exactly where he'd left Jack.

"Couldn't stay away?" Jack quipped through chattering teeth when David found him again. His legs were already invisible beneath the snow blanket—a few more minutes out here and he would probably have been buried completely.

"Can't be something I ain't," David retorted, digging him free. He'd only been gone about ten minutes, he estimated, but in that time Jack's lips had become an unsettling blue-purple, and he was shuddering within his coat. David glanced around for the nearest store, found a sign neatly painted with _Humphrey's General Store_. The door, of course, was closed and almost certainly bolted. He sighed. Not that there was a choice. Jack was freezing before his eyes. "Snow's too thick. We need to get you indoors."

Jack looked unenthusiastic about the idea, glancing down at his leg and up again. "I can stick it out until morning. It's only a bit of snow."

David wasn't exactly sure of what Jack's estimation of 'a bit' was, but the drifts were already several inches deep, and more was coming by the moment. Which was probably half the problem—the snow had become too thick for crawling, and Jack would have to do the next trip on his feet. "I'm sorry, we aren't putting it to a vote. You know just as well as I do how bad this could get. Don't tempt me to leave you here to freeze to death."

"That's an option?" Jack asked hopefully.

"No." David checked the splint again, made sure it was as secure as possible, then put a hand on Jack's shoulder. "Let's try it at least, Jack. It's not far."

Jack's expression was still dubious, but he nodded, if reluctantly. "Okay," he said, and if his chattering teeth stuttered the word into several syllables, David did him the courtesy of not taking notice. "Take it slow."

There are absolutely no redeeming features to be found in the experience of half-carrying your much taller friend with a broken leg a distance of fifty yards in a blizzard, unless it's the rather negative consolation that it's not a hundred. David placed himself on Jack's weak side and did his best to take Jack's weight every time he shifted balance, but Jack was longer and heavier, and David was a poor substitute at best. Fifty yards? It felt like a thousand. Halfway there, he felt Jack's weight suddenly increase. David grabbed his collar and wrenched him vertical, desperately.

"Don't you dare faint, you're far too heavy," he warned.

He half-expected Jack to make some sort of indignant comment about the sideways slur on his weight, but Jack said nothing, only breathed noisily in and out. "I won't," he said at last.

"You sure?"

"Sure."

They made it up the stairs and to the door without further incident. David fumbled with the lock for a couple of moments, attempting to pick it with the pin Jack produced from somewhere, but his hands were too stiff with cold to manage it. Besides, his conscience had never really let him get the hang of it in the first place. He gave in at last, tucked his hand within the cuff of his sleeve, and smashed his covered fist through the pane of glass set into the door, reaching up to unlock the door from the inside.

"Don't you say a word," he ordered Jack, who had opened his mouth.

"I was just gonna point out that my _fingers_ ain't broke, but…" Jack trailed off and shrugged with a quirk of his mouth that looked a bit impressed.

Maneuvering through the narrow doorway presented its own set of difficulties, but they managed it in the end—Jack by sheer determination, David by pretending very hard that there was no reason to think that he was hurting Jack—and David shut them in with a backward kick at the door.

This was home, then, for the night. On an ordinary day, perhaps, the thin bare walls and floors would have made for an uncomfortable prospect as a night stay, but it was out of the wind and the whipping snow, and that was enough to give it the appearance of luxury.

David settled Jack against a pile of what looked like a year's supply of rice packed in calico, away from the broken glass, and went searching. Humphrey apparently went more in for tinned food and brooms than for blankets, but he found a couple of itchy, thick afghans, as well as a tiny stove in a backroom which he stoked into life.

"Here," he said, handing both blankets to Jack when he returned. "Wet coat off."

"Yessir," Jack mumbled through teeth that were now unquestionably chattering. He wrapped one afghan around his shoulders, shivering into its folds. David started laying the second over his outstretched legs, but Jack kicked it off with his good leg. "There another one?"

"Yes," David lied.

Jack eyed him, expression halfway between scepticism and approval. "You're better at that than you used to be. Just take it. I'm in no mood for arguin'."

David got to his feet, cocking an eyebrow. "How exactly are you going to make me?" he asked, balling up the blanket and throwing it at Jack before striding away. "I'm boiling water," he called back.

He'd really only hoped to get hot water, maybe find a rubber skin or two to fill and keep their hands warm with, but they'd struck luck—the staff of Humphrey's were evidently avid coffee drinkers. David found a large canister of ground beans beside the stove and a bag of coarse brown sugar. Further investigation led to the discovery of a bottle of cooking rum, of which David, after crushing several misgivings, added a healthy splash to both mugs.

"Here," he said, returning and handing a steaming mug to Jack. "It's strong," he warned.

"You ain't kidding," Jack said after the first swallow, with an approving look. "I do like a guy who doesn't skimp on the booze."

"It's to help keep us warm," David said, eyes narrowed.

"Uh huh," Jack said knowingly, and pelted the second blanket back at David.

Three mugs later, and David found himself caught pleasantly between a gentle caffeine buzz and the warmth brought on by the rum. He was a bad match for Jack when it came to drinking, really: Jack ordinarily got very confidential with some alcohol under his belt, whereas David's thoughts tended more towards longing for his own bed. He kept himself better awake tonight, though, figuring Jack probably needed the distraction. Jack made light of most physical injury, but a broken leg was a broken leg.

The conversation meandered through trivialities: work and the weather, the last time either of them had seen one of the newsies. It was actually pretty nice, David thought, something like the old days on the fire escape or the gallery at Medda's. It had been a while since he and Jack had talked properly like this, beyond the ordinary hasty commonplaces. On the whole, it wasn't such a bad way to spend an evening.

"Hey," Jack said, after a short silence had fallen, in a different voice. "You know what you asked before, about missing it?"

"About missing—" David blinked. "Sorry, what?"

"Before, when you asked if I missed being a newsie."

"When I—oh, yes, okay?"

"Yeah. Maybe I do, a bit. I don't know." Jack kicked his good foot against the floor, the boot making a hard _thump_ on the old boards. He looked sober, nearly unhappy; all the laughter of a moment ago gone. "Not the scrapin' and the shoutin', and even the lying, sometimes. But…but you know how everybody's been spreadin' out, all of a sudden, and lately I've been feeling—I feel—"

Jack was _lonely_, David realised with a little shock that was just sharp enough to pierce his drowsy haze. Didn't it make sense, though? Jack craved the company of others in a way that David never had. He planted a hand against the floorboards and pushed himself up, not knowing in the least what to say beyond vaguely prompting: "You feel…"

"Sometimes I still think about it." Jack said it quietly, like it was some sort of shameful secret. He was fingering his collar, around where he'd once worn a neckerchief.

David guessed, "Santa Fe?"

"Yeah. I mean, it weren't like it was ever about it like it was a real place. I know I don't have the first idea how to farm or what to do with a cow. But that weren't never the point, you know?"

_Family_, David thought, though he didn't voice it out loud. It was obvious, once you gave it any thought at all. For Jack, Santa Fe had after all only ever really been a place for the father and mother he'd invented, for the family he'd so desperately wanted. _Family_, after all, was why he'd stayed in the end. Jack needed to feel like he belonged even more than he needed purpose; the newsies and the strike had given him both, and now that the months and the years had slowly eaten them away—well, was it any surprise he felt at a loose end?

"Jack…" David began, just as some distant church clock chimed the hour.

"Midnight," Jack said, poking a hole in one of the bags of rice.

"_Jack_," David tried again. He cast about uselessly for the words. "Just—you know, you can always come over if you're feeling—" _sad_? _lonely_? _useless_? "—down. I know I'm busy nowadays, but—are you listening?"

Jack was busy shaping a pile of rice into a little mound. David watched, bemused, as he lit a cigarette and then stuck it in the rice, lit side up.

"Probably not the way you wanted to start it," Jack said, with a deprecating smile. "But put it this way, the only way from here is up. Happy birthday, Davey."

David blinked at the pile of rice and then up at Jack. Jack's expression shifted, clearly toward misinterpretation.

"Forget what I was sayin'," he said. "I didn't mean to bring things down. Specially after draggin' you out here—"

"Don't be stupid," David said, now actually nearly annoyed. "You didn't drag me. It's possible to say no to you, you know."

"But it's your birthday," Jack insisted. "You oughta be with your folks."

David plucked out the cigarette, regarded its glowing end for a moment, then stubbed it out against the floor. Jack watched him, now silent and uncertain, and maybe a little hurt.

And this, David decided, was why next time he probably shouldn't wait for a blizzard and a broken leg to provide them with the opportunity to _talk_. Back in the days of hawking headlines and taking down the World, maybe there hadn't been the need for it, and maybe he hadn't realised that things were slipping these days. Friendships, as his mother was fond of saying, needed work, after all. And if Jack was really sitting there feeling forlorn and ashamed and seriously believing David _begrudged_ him for breaking his leg, then clearly they had slipped further than they ever should have.

"You," David said, very definitely, "are an idiot."

Jack blinked.

"Look, I'm not good at this kind of thing," David went on, maintaining the same tone. "But _tell_ me if you're feeling lonely or bored or _whatever_, Jack, all right? Maybe I can't help or maybe I can, but at the very least I can listen. And I'd want to. Just let me. Okay?"

He waited until Jack nodded—just a hesitant jerk of the head—then picked up his tin mug.

"As for spending my birthday with my folks," he said, chinking his mug against Jack's meaningly. He smiled. "Well. Aren't I?"

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**A/N: **Thanks for reading. :)


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